Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

Whilst I thank the government for the small extension of time for reporting on the inquiry on the cashless debit card bill, I want to put on the record how disappointed the opposition is in relation to the amount of time that has been made available to review and consider these bills in committee. I think it disrespects the important work of the Senate.

I also think the disrespect that the Labor Party has shown by not consulting with the very people that this measure is going to impact is extraordinarily insulting to them. Communities in the trial sites of the Goldfields, the Kimberley, Hervey Bay, Bundaberg and Ceduna actually asked for this particular measure to be put in place. The government are seeking to remove this measure without even bothering to consult with them, and now they want to rush this legislation through this place. I think this is absolutely unbelievable; that this appalling decision does not even go to back to the communities that have asked for it. I would draw the attention of the chamber to the fact that in my home state of South Australia, in Ceduna, the CDC was actually put in place in response to a coronial inquest into the tragic deaths of a number of people on the west coast. It was a recommendation of the coroner's report into those deaths, and it was something that that community asked for.

In other sites that previously had the clunky, outdated BasicsCard, the government is now going to deny participants in those communities the ability to access the new technology the cashless debit card offers them. They do not intend to remove income management. In answer to a question asked of him last week, Minister Farrell said that income management was not going to be taken out of the Northern Territory. They want to send those people back to having the clunky old BasicsCard instead of providing them with the advanced technology of the cashless debit card. In doing so, they will also deny the Traditional Credit Union in the Northern Territory the opportunity to support many of their members in using this particular new form of technology.

In Cape York transition is voluntary. There are a number of people on the card voluntarily. They've linked it to their amazing, award-winning Pama Platform, which supports—